Ask the Author: innie darling

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Ask the Author: innie darling
Interviewer:
Interviewee:	innie darling (kunju)
Date(s):	June 9, 2007
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Supernatural
External Links:	interview and comments are here, Archived version
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

innie darling was interviewed for Supernatural Roundtable.

Some Excerpts

My history is neither exciting nor long. This is the first fandom I've really been a part of, though I watched a few shows religiously and even wrote a few stories for some of them (X-Files, BtVS, Firefly, and Veronica Mars). I got a livejournal a year and a half ago, posted my first Supernatural story a few days later, and I've been happily ensconced here ever since.

I've been far more productive in this fandom than any other, though I am not by any stretch of the imagination a prolific or quick writer. A list of my Supernatural stuff is here. I don't know if it's something about me that's changed or something about this fandom that makes it possible, but for whatever reason, I find myself trying all sorts of new things with the fics I'm producing. I've written character studies and plotty stories; past tense and present tense; first-, second-, and third-person narratives; het, slash, and gen; funny, crack, and sad; long and short; canon characters and OCs; AU and FitB. Not everything worked, of course, but I like feeling like this fandom will let me do anything I can dream up.

There are things I haven't written - the big one being Wincest - that I have no plans to try; mostly (aside from Wincest, which I do read regularly), these are genres or plotlines that don't appeal to me. I don't want to list them here, but if you ask, I'll be happy to tell you what's on the list and why.

And I've been incredibly lucky with my betas, finding people who will give it to me straight and put in the time and effort to make me a better writer.

As for why Kathleen? Several reasons. First, I really enjoyed her character on the show. I liked that she was competent and smart and had an interesting bond with Dean. She also suited my purposes in that she understood loss and revenge in a very personal way, and I liked that the ep handled the parallels between her and Dean in such a deft way, even though I was fairly heavy-handed about it in the story itself. One thing I really wanted for "NTSH" was the sense of the boys being very young, and Kathleen's age helped with that (Bobby and John are the only other major characters). Plus, the cop in the story needed to have enough autonomy to claim the case and follow it wherever it went, and a young cop (like the "Amy" Dean mentioned in "Shadow") wouldn't have had that. And I wanted a female cop, since I wanted her to have an interior life, and I thought I could do that more convincingly with a female character than a male. I didn't see the point in creating an OC when Kathleen worked out great.

The story wasn't always going to be gen. I'd been playing with giving Kathleen a romance (hooking her up with Ramirez) and having Sam possibly act on Eve's feelings for him. And at one point, there was going to be a guy who liked Sam too. But I ended up cutting them because I felt like the story was full enough.

More generally, I tend to write in order. If a new fic idea comes to me, it's usually in the form of a single scene or a single moment, so that's the part I write down first. As an example, I had a dream that included the dialogue in "Sita" from "I betcha one girl saw something" to "We aren't talking about four-square, here." Once I've got the original idea down, I go back and start from the beginning.

I don't think I've had a story completely change on me. Part of the reason is the way I write - editing as I go along, so maybe it's fairer to say that nothing is ever set completely in stone for me. I also don't come up with a lot of ideas for stories, so when I do, I usually turn it over in my head for a little while before I start to write, just to get a feel for it. I have had plot points not work out - as in the Kathleen romance, or if it's not plausible for one character to have information I need him to have - but my work-arounds have not, in my opinion, derailed the story.

The exception is the Ben and Dean series, in which the lunatics totally are running the asylum. In scene two, I wasn't expecting Ben to be as angry with Dean as he was. And when Dean got wings, I thought he'd put them to good (porny) use, but instead he was just miserable. What can I say? Those two just own me.